Manuel Dietz

RS3G: European Standards Initiative Supporting the Bologna Process

Washington D.C. April 6, 2009

11:00 – 12:00

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Manuel DietzManuel Dietz11

unisolutionunisolution22

BolognaBologna33

European InitativesEuropean Initatives44

RS3GRS3G55

Use CasesUse Cases66

Questions and AnswersQuestions and Answers77

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Background Manuel Dietz

Studied architecture at

TU Darmstadt…

… spent one year with Erasmus in Madrid, Spain …

… and worked in the International Office at TU Darmstadt

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Working in an International Office

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QS unisolution GmbH

Founded in 2001 in the Technical University Darmstadt by Manuel Dietz and Stéphane Velay

Team of 11 colleagues based in Stuttgart

300 institutions in 15 countries using moveon, more than 1,200 members of the moveonnet web portal

From April 1st 2009 part of QS group based in London

Our mission:

To provide institutions of higher education with software, portals and services essential for their development in the international field

QS unisolution

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Application- andAdmissions Management

Higher Education Worldwide

Fairs

Services and EventsPortals

Supporting International Education

International Relations Management

Higher Education Worldwide

Software

Rankings

Trainings and Workshops

QS and QS unisolution - Portfolio

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The unisolution user community

300 institutions in 15 countires using our software

1,500 colleagues working with moveon everyday

100,000 students yearly managed in moveon

Instituions using moveon

South Africa 1

Germany 132

Belgium 9

Denmark 2

Spain 8

France 93

Ireland 4

Italy 1

Netherlands 4

Portugal 2

UK 7

Sweden 11

Switzerland 7

Turkey 3

Taiwan 1

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Europe before Bologna

27 countries in todays EU-europe

- Diversity of educational systems and degrees

- Difficulties in transferring academic achievements

- Incompatibility between countries

- Many inhibitors to mobility

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Europe with Bologna

European Higher Education Area

academic degree standards

introduction of comparable degrees (Bachelor / Master)

introduction of Credit Point System (ECTS)

recognition of degrees

increase attractiveness of European higher education

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Europe with Bologna

European Higher Education Area

Bologna started with 29 member states

Today EHEA has 46 members

Students in tertiary education

- 16.5 Mio. Students in EU 27 - 17.2 Mio students in USA

Students in mobility per year

- 360,000 in EU 27 - 200,000 in Euro Area

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One focus of Bologna is Mobility

There are three types of mobility

Exchange Mobility = Students studying parts of one learning period in another institution

Dual / Mulitple Degree Mobility = Students studying in more than one institution and receiving more than one degree

Transfer Mobility = Students transfering within or after a learning period (e.g. Bachelor Degree) completely from one institution to another

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Successes of Bologna until today

One of the successes of Bologna was the introduction of Bachelor / Masters Degrees throughout europe and of ECTS

… shorter study cycles within the two levels

… comparable degrees across europe

… easier transfer from one institution to another

… continous growth in exchange mobility

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The next challenges

Still to be resolved are processes to …

… transfer credits outside of exchange mobility

… transfer data between universities in general

… make data transfer and recognition more transparent

… define standards between different IT systems

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Major european projects on standards for courses / student data

UK: XCRI (courses)

Norway: CDM (courses)

France: CDM-FR (courses)

Sweden: LadokPing (students)

Sweden: Emil (courses)

Italy: Anagrafe nazionale (students)

EU: PLOTEUS (courses)

UK/Ireland: digitary full electronic graduation documents

EU: CEDEFOP- Europass

Italy: Alma Laurea (graduates)

CEN Technical Committee 353(European Committee for Standardization)

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RS3G was initiated by unisolution in collaboration with Digitary and KION

Exchange ideas and experience around student and curriculum data transfer between institutions of Higher Education

Supporting the Bologna Process by developing new technological approaches and standards to implement them

The roots of RS3G

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European workshop, 9th November 2007 in Rome

Defining standards and procedures for the exchange

of student curriculum data between

Higher Education Institutions

40 participants from 13 countries incl. PESC

Rome Student Systems and Standards Group (R3SG)

Recommendations

oPermanent Observatory

oDelegation of Experts to CEN

oPromote technical subgroups

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Most important members are

Digitary EAIE EUNISGartner JISC / CETISHIS KIONLADOKOraclePESCSungardunisolution

RS3G member institutions

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Steering committee members

Gunnar Backelin, LADOK (SE)

Jonathan Dempsey, Digitary (IE)

Jean Francois Desnos, EUNIS (FR)

Manuel Dietz, unisolution (DE)

Herrmann de Leeuw, EAIE (NL)

Simone Ravaioli, KION (IT)

Advisors to steering committee

Jan Martin Lowendahl, Gartner Research (SE)

David Moldoff, PESC and Academy One (USA)

Mark Stubbs, Manchester Metropolitan University (GB)

RS3G steering committee

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Bringing standards together with “real life”

Implementers groupsi.e. R3SG

Standardization authoritiesi.e. CEN

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The opportunities for standards

Student Observatory

STUDY PROGRAMMES & COURSE UNITS CATALOGUE

.............................

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STUDY PROGRAMME DETAILS

............................

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...

COURSE UNIT DETAILS

.......................

.......................

................

LEARNING AGREEMENT

.......................

.......................

.......................

.......................

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TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDS

..........................

..........................

..........................

..........................

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DIPLOMA SUPPLEMENT

..........................

..........................

..........................

..........................

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CURRICULUM VITAE

..........................

..........................

..........................

..........................

.................

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Business Cases Flow

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Focus areas

European Learner Mobility

Security / authentication (identity and tamper-evidence)

Description of course units / unit catalogue

Curriculum versioning (snapshot)

Curriculum rules / Degree Structure / Pathway

Academic history of individual

Graduation documents (European Diploma Supplement and other)

Course equivalency/matching

Grading Scheme (how the grading scales and distribution are built

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Principles agreed by the group

1.Manage diversity

2.Integrate and acknowledge existing activities by always checking other work first, i.e. don't reinvent where there has been work done elsewhere such as by PESC, CEN, ISO, HR-XML, IMS

3.Use pilot implementations and feedback from users to advance standards activity

4.Publicise the work of the group as possible with keynotes at major conferences

5.Generally use of pointers is better than transfer of data, where appropriate

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Future Roadmap for RS3G

Liaise with other groups such as EAIE, EUNIS, CEN

Build formal structures with two meetings per year + steering committee

Work on pilot projects between Institutions, Suppliers and National / European Institutions

Influence the standards in Higher Education

Promote new technologies in the HE sector across borders

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The unisolution approach on Bologna with e-mobility

One of unisolutions main focuses is on supporting international exchange, erasmus and study abroad with IT managed processes and software

This includes

Preparing exchange frameworks (Bilateral exchange Agreements)

Providing accessible course offer (Learning Agreements, LA)

Transferring data related to mobility (Nomination)

Transferring academic achievements (Transcripts of Records, ToR)

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Definition e-mobility

The e-mobility process includes the following electronic procedures:

standard electronic procedure for exchange agreements

(before mobility)

standard electronic procedure for nomination of exchange students

(before mobility)

standard electronic procedure for exchange of curriculum data of

exchange students (consisting of e-Learning Agreement and the e-Transcript of Records)

(before, during and after mobility)

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The ways to use the e-procedures

e-procedures service provider

Web services

moveon Own system

Web services

Web services

moveonnet

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Advantages of e-mobility

• Transparent information flow between all parties involved (partner institutions & student)

• Automated data transfer prevents repeated data entry and mistakes (e.g. online course catalogue LA ToR Home Institutions Student Management)

• One standard system usable by all institutions worldwide for incoming and outgoing students with moveon, moveonnet or own system

• Reduces unnecessary paperwork

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Current use of e-mobility

• e-nomination was first used in 2007/08 as pilot phase

• in 2008/09 e-nomination was actively used by around 50 european institutions to nominate 10.000 students

• e-nomination was also used by some US institutions

• in 2009/10 our aim is to increase that number by 100% or more

• e-transcripts are piloted until June 2009 and will be opened to public in July at the yearly moveon users conference in Stockholm, Sweden

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Challenges for e-mobility

• Too many different data formats (courses, grades, persons)

• Already existing standards (CDM, CDM-FR) only implemented in very few institutions

• Diversity of existing processes … or even no processes at all in place

• Authentication methods when transferring sensitive data

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How RS3G can help

• Standardizing the many different formats of course catalogues

• Bringing the implementors together

• Promote new business models for the universities

• Piloting between different countries

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Contacts

Manuel Dietz

Managing Director QS unisolution GmbH

[email protected]

+49 711 25359160

www.unisolution.eu

Your questions … ?

Contacts

Manuel Dietz

Managing Director QS unisolution GmbH

[email protected]

+49 711 25359160

www.unisolution.eu

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Manuel Dietz